Andy McNab's Enigma Force : The Regiment

Stealth games haven't had a fantastic track record on mobile phones lately, and unfortunately, this isn't the review to herald a change in fortunes. An SAS simulator, played from a top-down perspective, Andy McNab's Enigma Force : The Regiment (which surely must be one of the longest mobile game names ever), tries hard to pull you into the stealthy world of the SAS soldier, but ultimately, it falls short on the crucial element of gameplay.

The story, co-written by Andy McNab, is the strongest point of the game, putting you into the shoes of a soldier in the army, who dreams of joining a special ops unit known as 'The Regiment'. When your friend, a member of The Regiment, is killed on duty in South America, you decide it's time to follow your dreams, and sign up for The Regiment yourself.

The game is played from a top-down perspective, and sees you attempting to infiltrate, sneak, and spy on enemy bases in a wide variety of locations, from a sun-drenched desert to a lush green forest.

The locations you visit have been well-drawn and designed, with each area looking genuinely unique, an achievement in itself for a mobile game. Fancy graphical effects add to the impressive level of visual precision on offer here, with 3D rain effects giving the illusion of depth. That said, when admiring the graphics proves to be more fun than playing the game itself, you know something's gone wrong.

For starters, your soldier's controls are utterly, utterly dreadful. If you need to be stealthy, it would be helpful if you could actually, you know, sneak. Instead, your soldier just legs it, full speed behind guards who somehow don't notice his size 10 army boots stomping along behind them.

To make matters worse, if you do get spotted by a guard, the action falls to pieces, as the combat mechanism is awful.

Actually getting your soldier to go in the direction you want is a challenge, let alone getting him to shoot in the general direction of your enemies. Of course, the AI opponents can target, shoot and kill you with incredible precision, even though they didn't notice you running behind them a few minutes ago.

The placement of enemies and the areas they patrol have been well arranged to try and stop you from reaching your objective, and sneaking past without being spotted can be a challenge on some levels, true. It's when you're forced to interact with a guard that the trouble begins.

If a guard is patrolling, he won't ever stop moving, so you have no chance to sneak up behind him and knock him out. Instead, you must attempt to shoot him from a distance. Without an aiming reticule of any sort this is an incredibly hard challenge, and as soon as you hit the guard once, an alarm goes off, and suddenly you'll find yourself under fire from all angles.

Again, this would be passable if you could actually fire back and hope to hit someone, but due to the broken controls, that's a pipedream.

Elsewhere, the sound effects during the game are practically non-existent. There are no sound effects for gun shots, alarms, or any other in game event, the only sound present being the ditty little tune that plays when you finish a level.

Whilst the weird lack of any sound makes it a perfect game to play on the bus to work or on the train, we're not entirely sure why you'd want to, as doing so is no fun at all. Impressive graphics and a reasonable storyline aside, there's very little to credit. The SAS motto might be 'He Who Dares Wins', but here it's more a case of 'He Who Dares Will Wish He Hadn't'. Try Splinter Cell instead.

Andy McNab's Enigma Force : The Regiment

A disappointing stealth-'em-up that's let down by its own control system, or lack thereof. Quite simply, this is Andy McNaff.
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